Indonesian Illegal Immigrants
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Indonesians account for the largest number of illegal immigrants in Malaysia, most working in various sectors like common Malaysians, as well as jobs that Malaysians are unwilling to work. The majority of them are sub-contractors on plantations for palm oil, or working for sub-contractors of plantation companies. Construction is the other industry flooded with illegal immigrants from Indonesia.
Work in Indonesia is usually for very low pay; sweatshops paying US$1 are all over Indonesia. Insufficient funding for infrastructure causes mass unemployment, as well as harsh working conditions. This constitutes the reason for an increasing number of Indonesians being willing to travel abroad to work, or even seek a better life.
Prior to the ban of Domestic Helpers to Malaysia by the Indonesian government due to political reasons, tens of thousand of Indonesian maids were deployed to Malaysia every day. In most case, a large percentage of these maids had no intention of working for their original employers. In the case of Indonesian maids, all their expenses to deploy to Malaysia are paid for, as well as cash payments to their families of up to RM1,000. In exchange, they need to guarantee to their Indonesian agent that they will stick to their employers for at least 3 months. More than 75% of these Indonesian maids choose to run away from their employers for various factors, including abuse by employers, better salary offers, to reunite with their relatives in Malaysia, or just to seek a better life compared to what they had enjoyed in Indonesia.
Because the Indonesian and Malay languages are virtually the same, most Indonesians feel very comfortable communicating in Malaysia; and because most small business owners are fluent in Malay, it is much more convenient for them to hire Indonesians, whether illegal or legal.
However, ever since the Project IC was launched, more and more foreigners have been flooding Sabah, hoping one day to gain a Malaysian IC, where they could then go to other greener pastures like Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Canada, USA and other developed countries using Malaysian citizenship.
Read more about this topic: Illegal Immigrants In Malaysia
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